Dr. Johanna Miller Lewis, UALR professor of history and associate dean of the graduate school, has won the 2009 National Education Association’s Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award for her work creating “Life Interrupted.” The public history exhibits and curriculum document the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans in rural Arkansas.

Lewis received the award July 2 at the NEA Annual Human and Civil Rights Awards Dinner Awards Dinner in San Diego.

“Life Interrupted” project was created in 2004 and was a partnership between the UALR and the Japanese American National Museum with major funding provided by the Winthrop Rock­efeller Foundation.

The project also included a national conference, “Camp Connec­tions: A Conversation About Civil Rights and Social Justice in Arkansas,” that drew over 1,200 people to Little Rock. It also included eight exhibitions in venues around the city, the development of a documentary “Time of Fear” that examined the Japanese American World War II experience in Arkansas, and the writing of a children’s book. One of the UALR exhibits, Against Their Will: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas received a Best Exhibit Award from the Arkansas Museum Association at its annual meeting in 2005.

A strong component of the project was the training of master teachers and the development of curriculum so that the story of Japanese American incarcera­tion during the war will be taught in Ar­kansas schools for years to come.

“I am thrilled his project has received such acclaim. Everyone involved in UALR’s Public History Program was honored to participate in his groundbreaking effort,” Lewis said. “The Life Interrupted project is a great example of how a metropolitan university can join with community partners and use its resources to enrich our understanding of the world around us.”

The Life Interrupted told the story of the 17,000 Japanese-Americans who were dispossessed of their homes and property and sent to two camps in southeastern Arkansas for the duration of the U.S. war against Japan. They were among 110,000 Japanese-Americans forcibly removed from their homes on the Pacific Coast and Hawaii.